In this lesson, you will learn about the copula -(y)ken. This suffix creates adverbs out of verbs and make adjectives/nouns predicates. Its meaning is close to "when" or "while".

It combines with many other suffixes, but for now we will only see it with aorist and adjectives/nouns. -(y)ken does not take personal markers, so we have to express the subject at the beginning of the sentence. Let's see how:

Turkish	English
Ben çocukken (...)	When I was a kid (...)
Sen yolda koşarken (...)	While you were running on the road (...)
Kamil arabaya bakarken (...)	While Kamil was looking at the car (...)

As in other suffixes beginning with (y), the y appears when the suffix is preceded by a vowel.

Turkish	English
Ülkemiz bu haldeyken (...)	When our country is in this condition (...)

Breakdown of Ülkemiz bu haldeyken, bizden iyi bir şey çıkmaz.